Reference Letters in Residency Applications

[StainAlive]

Hi, I'm a med student applying to CaRMS this year. I'm currently building my applications for each of the programs I'm applying to. I have worked with an attending whom I heard is usually on the selection committee. I received an excellent evaluation from this attending and have asked them for a reference letter. I'm confident that if they are, in fact, on the selection committee, they would put in a good word for me. However, I was wondering if assigning a reference letter from this attending would create a conflict of interest, and if so, would that mean they could no longer be involved in evaluating my application?

Additionally, I have another question. I completed an away elective outside my school and asked for reference letters from attendings at that institution. Would it be better for me to use those letters specifically when applying to the program where I did that away elective, though they may not be as strong due to the limited interaction during the two-week elective?

[1D7]

That won't be a conflict of interest.

23 hours ago, StainAlive said:

Additionally, I have another question. I completed an away elective outside my school and asked for reference letters from attendings at that institution. Would it be better for me to use those letters specifically when applying to the program where I did that away elective, though they may not be as strong due to the limited interaction during the two-week elective?

No one can give a straight answer to this since you have to choose one strategy or the other for CaRMS. I felt I was more successful doing this (i.e. using letter writers from staff at that school... assuming I felt they would still be very positive letters).

[anonymouspls]

I would use the letter from the selection committee. Every program has different rules about conflict of interest, but generally someone on the selection committee will generally make known what their impression of you is one way or another. 

[MedicineLCS]

I was told that doing an elective and NOT using the letter at that school is something considered somewhat strange. After all, they will know that letter writer best at that program. I wouldn't stress if it's a late elective with no letter as a result (I did that and interviewed at that program as so close to deadline) but if it's a Sept/Oct/early Nov elective definitely try and use the local letter. 

[DrOtter]

On 11/22/2024 at 3:36 PM, StainAlive said:

Hi, I'm a med student applying to CaRMS this year. I'm currently building my applications for each of the programs I'm applying to. I have worked with an attending whom I heard is usually on the selection committee. I received an excellent evaluation from this attending and have asked them for a reference letter. I'm confident that if they are, in fact, on the selection committee, they would put in a good word for me. However, I was wondering if assigning a reference letter from this attending would create a conflict of interest, and if so, would that mean they could no longer be involved in evaluating my application?

Additionally, I have another question. I completed an away elective outside my school and asked for reference letters from attendings at that institution. Would it be better for me to use those letters specifically when applying to the program where I did that away elective, though they may not be as strong due to the limited interaction during the two-week elective?

I got a letter from a current PD on an away elective. I made sure to clarify with them that that was okay. It was fine.

[bearded frog]

It is not uncommon for those of us who participate in CaRMS on the faculty side also write letters, generally a lot of us are involved in file review, multiple interview days, so somewhat unavoidable. They generally will not give us a candidate we wrote a letter for (or worked with, ideally) their file for review. It's not usually a problem for interviews since we use standardized MMIs. I know some PDs won't write letters in general. If it's a conflict of interest it's on the attending to worry about that. If they don't have a problem then you shouldn't worry about it.

[robclem21]

When it comes to CaRMS, working with applicants and writing them a LoR is most definitely not a conflict of interest. That is literally the entire point of electives. As a program, you want to get to know the candidates personally and determine whether they will be a good fit in your program from both an academic and interpersonal perspective. If we ignore all those relationships and knowledge during the selection process, what exactly is the purpose of electives?

While someone writing you a reference letter from that school may not be able to directly review your application (every school is different in this regard), others will certainly be able to and will recognize the name of the person on the letter. They are more likely to trust an assessment from someone they know, work with, and have high regard for, compared to a letter from someone who they have never met.

You should definitely use a letter from that school if you did an elective there, as not doing so will raise a lot of questions to the selection committee about what happened on elective there and people will start to ask around about you in a bad way. However, everyone who does an elective gets discussed both formally and informally by everyone (residents and staff) in the department when it comes close to CaRMS time.